Ballmer pushes any rising star within Microsoft out before they have the chance to potentially replace him

An ex-Microsoft executive, who will release a new book about his experiences with the company, said that current CEO Steve Ballmer is anything but fit for the role.

Joachim Kempin, a former Microsoft employee from 1983-2002, recently wrote a book called "Resolve and Fortitude: Microsoft's 'Secret Power Broker' Breaks his Silence" that will be published today.

The book details Ballmer's role as CEO, and how he has kept that position for so long. According to Kempin, Ballmer pushes any rising star within Microsoft out before they have the chance to potentially replace him.

Kempin first witnessed this when it happened to Richard Belluzzo, a former Hewlett-Packard executive that launched the Xbox console. He eventually made his way up to chief operating officer, but after only 14 months as COO, Belluzzo left.

"He (Belluzzo) had no room to breathe on the top," said Kempin. "When you work that directly with Ballmer and Ballmer believes 'maybe this guy could someday take over from me', my God, you will have less air to breathe, that's what it comes down to."

Kempin said this also happened with other major Microsoft executives, including Kevin Johnson, a former Windows head that left to run Juniper Networks Inc.; Stephen Elop, a former Office chief that went to Nokia; Ray Ozzie, a software extraordinaire that left to start his own project, and Steven Sinofsky, former Windows chief that left right after Windows 8 launched.

Sinofsky, former president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live division, announced that he was leaving the company last November after 23 years with the company. While Sinofsky was seen as a brilliant figure at Microsoft, his downfall was that he didn't get along with others within the company. He was notorious for picking fights with other executives, including Ballmer.

So why exactly does Ballmer feel threatened? According to Kempin, it's because Ballmer isn't fit for the CEO role, and that Microsoft could use a new fresh face at the helm.

"Is he a great CEO? I don't think so," said Kempin. "Microsoft's board is a lame duck board, has been forever. They hire people to help them administer the company, but not to lead the company. That's the problem. They need somebody maybe 35-40 years old, a younger person who understands the Facebook Inc generation and this mobile community. They don't need this guy on stage with this fierce, aggressive look, announcing the next version of Windows and thinking he can score with that."

Windows 8 is stable and completely usable, the fact that you say you would rather use ME over 8 shows you have not used 8 and are just riding the bandwagon. Windows 8 cannot be compared to ME in any way at all, one is different so people dislike it (Windows 8) the other was unstable and incapable of running for long periods of time (Windows ME).

Because in Windows 7, you could search for three different items at once, programs, files and settings when pressing windows key. In Windows 8, you need to press down, down and enter before you could search for files. This is a big, and utterly unecessary step backwards for desktop users. You also can't drag and drop items from the start menu to open programs or folders; the thing takes up the whole screen.

It is also no longer possible to press windows key, right arrow and enter to shut down the computer. If they are going to make something new, it must truly be better. I've used Windows 8 for half a year, and I still don't use a single Metro App; I actually don't even look at the tiles but use it only to search-start programs because the start screen does not auto populate with recently use programs. Another way to marginalize the desktop user by Microsoft. The calendar, email, tweetro, ie and picture apps are so pixel bloated and feature deprived I will never use them, but have the desktop equivalents all open at once, besides each other showing the same information, on my desktop.

Explorer no longer has the ability to cycle through icon view modes, you have to click, move mouse and click again.

On the good side, minimizing the ribbon interface and using the Quick Access Toolbar is very useful for me, and I do enjoy very much the improved dwm rendering on my 120hz monitor. In Windows 7 animations and window movements often only rendered at 60hz:

quote: In Windows 8, you need to press down, down and enter before you could search for files.

You could try winkey + f... just sayin'when I type word, I want Microsoft word to come up, not word.txt. Microsoft's idea to separate the lists is great.

Shutting down is easy. It's not as easy as it was in 7, sure, but I'm not going to damn the OS because they moved "shutdown". Good lord, do you shut your system down so much that you need quick immediate access to it all the time? Hit winkey, type "shutdown /s /t 00", press enter. you could also make a shortcut with this in the path, then you could put it on your desktop and/or pin it to your start screen. Use "shutdown /r /t 00" to reboot rather than shutdown.

I agree, metro apps for the most part suck... bad. Netflix is pretty good after a few patches made it stable and Skype is not bad, though I wish they'd add desktop sharing. Music, video, and other apps, pretty much suck.

quote: Explorer no longer has the ability to cycle through icon view modes, you have to click, move mouse and click again.

But this is the prime point we opponents are trying to make. I don't know or have any desire to know all the keyboard command and tricks. Everything used to be but one or two clicks away. Now it is very cumbersome and frustrating. Win 8 is more headache than it's worth. Wisdom and common sense ring true here. You DON'T change what works well! It pi$$es people off.

That's the problem with Windows 8. It has a quite a nice set of improvements but Microsoft replaced many Desktop features with Metro equivalents. Since Metro is a PITA, those improvements are utterly lost in the angst of a touch oriented worldview where the simpler (and more functional!) start menu is gone, major apps run from Metro in fullscreen which eliminates multitasking, and the apps themselves are full of dead space (i.e. they could fit in a Window half or quarter the size if you killed all the wasted empty space).

Changing how Windows fundamentally works was bound to cause friction with users. Making those changes obviously inferior to Windows 7 turns change friction to outrage and significantly reduces demand for your product. This is why Ballmer is crap as a CEO - he must have known this. MS offered an unbelievable upgrade discount, reported license sales to OEMs (not actual Windows 8 installs), and spent the past year ignoring all the feedback from users. Ballmer failed at the basics - meeting the needs of your customers so they'll buy your stuff and make your shareholders happy.

Very well said! The upgrade discount was offered because they KNEW they had stinker on their hands.

Before I make the next statement, I'd like to qualify that I am NOT an Apple fan. I'm a Linux fan.

Were the touch interface is concerned, Apple's iOS is better, Android is much better and even Linux[technically Android IS Linux, but I digress] is better then than of Microsoft's offering. I'd even prefer Blackberry's Playbook OS to Windows 8.

Now to be fair, I really like Windows 7! In my book it stands second only to Linux Mint.

I have used all three publicly available versions of 8 and ALSO think it's crap! Now to be fair, if I was forced to choose between all of MS's failures, I'd choose Vista over ME. But he is correct, after properly tweaking, configuring and disabling the unstable parts of ME it was perfectly stable and ran better than 98SE. However, most of you are missing a very valid point, Windows 7 is a most worthy and better option. Some companies[like the one I work for] have stopped selling and are refusing to further support Windows 8.

Microsoft already knows it has a failure on it's hands. Don't like Windows 8? Choose 7. Speak with your wallets as well as your words. So there you go folks. Problem solved.

As if Ballmer or Gates had no idea what Sinofsky was up to. I am 100% certain they approved (if not dictated) every move Microsoft did in the past decade. Once Windows 8 did not fly as they hoped, they shoot off the "ballast". Scapegoat classic. Steve survived once again, while MSFT stock is going exactly nowhere from investing standpoint. Sell!

The board and Balmer had months or status updates during development. Windows 8 is there responsiblity just as much as Sinofsky's. I think Sinofsky having a fight with Balmer (as was previously reported) is a much more likely reason.

Windows 8 is not a "turd" by any means. Its saddled by a UI that doesn't work with desktop PCs is all. And that can be fixed by several different programs, some of which are free. The kernel is the best yet from Microsoft. And there are plenty of other improvements. You simply can't be to ignorant to notice, or lazy to figure out how to work around Metro.

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates